


Inventing Shadows

by DaLaRi



Category: Supernatural
Genre: All the Hunters are Firefighters, Alternate Universe - Firefighters, Angst, Cas owns a flowershop, Fluff, Gabriel owns a coffeeshop, M/M, Sam goes to Kansas University, long fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-24 15:28:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/941573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaLaRi/pseuds/DaLaRi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The love story of a burnt-out fireman who'd forgotten that there were beautiful things in the world and the owner of a small flowershop who reminded him that they are there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I originally intended for this fic to be my Big Bang project, but it's my first long fic, and I had a hard time keeping on schedule, and eventually I had to drop out. It's likely that updates will be sporadic, but I'll do my best to keep a schedule.
> 
> Immense thans to cappybara, who's been an amazing friend and A+ cheerleader for as long as I've known her.
> 
> The title is from a song by Dia Frampton.

 

 

“[To] the earth, a hundred years is nothing.  
A million years is nothing.  
This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale.  
We can’t imagine its slow and powerful rhythms,  
and we haven’t got the humility to try.  
If we are gone tomorrow, the earth won’t miss us.”  
\- Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park

Prologue

In general, Aprils in Lawrence, Kansas are miserably dry. The air seems to shrink, and the pale blue china of the sky seems to wash out, the occasional cloud nothing more than a hopeful wisp of moisture on the horizon. The grass does not sparkle with dew in the mornings, the clouds reflect nothing except the cardboard sky. The college students scramble to finish and perfect their final papers, and high school students begin to try on their graduation caps. The entire city seems to hold its breath, waiting anxiously for the final bell of the school year. Everyone seems to be waiting for something to happen. Everyone’s got something coming next, something they’re waiting on.  
Dean Winchester is waiting on two people.  
One he’s aware of.  
The other he isn’t.  
The first person he’s waiting on is his younger brother Sam. Sam’s sitting in his last class of the day, running his hands through his ridiculous hair in anxiety as his professor in Honors Microeconomics assigns the final project of his senior year. Even as he’s scribbling down notes on the format of the final, he’s screaming internally.  
His classmates don’t know this.  
Neither does Dean.  
Dean sits on the corner of 15th Street and Burdick Drive, idling his car and listening to classic rock from his bag of cassette tapes, a gift from his dad. The car’s his dad’s too; a 1967 Chevrolet Impala, and it’s Dean’s first love. In Aprils, when his little brother is off learning about the finer points of Kansas Criminal Law, Dean pampers his baby; he has nothing else to do. Once, he was a painter, but his brushes are covered in a coating of dust, and the paints have long since cracked and dried. Now, the only paint Dean uses is to fix up the family’s house.  
The house is old, and it’s full of scorch marks and painful memories, but it’s four walls and a roof, and Dean’s grateful. But that doesn’t stop him from trying to paint over the burns in Sammy’s old nursery, or to lock the door to their parents’ room. Most of the year, he isn’t home enough to realize how much his memories hurt, but in April, when the fire department is off training their newest batch of recruits, Dean can’t bear to be at the station. He hates how the trainees stare at his soot-darkened face, how they wrinkle their noses at the smell of burning wood. Raised in fire and woodsmoke, Dean is lost among his peers. He would rather be at home, among the ghosts and the burning. He doesn’t mind the smell of charcoal. To him, the smell is home.  
Sam has always hated the pervasive smell of smoke. When he was younger, he’d stay at school long after the last bell had rung, burying himself in books, simply trying to forget the ash and the pain. He’d work until his assignments were flawless, then on papers of his own design. He didn’t want to go home, and honestly, Dean didn’t blame him. But Sam was his responsibility and he’d always manage to coax Sam back into the house with promises of protection, of safety.  
For Sam, Dean would always be there to fight the faces in the flames.  
For Dean, it was never a choice.  
There’s a rift growing between the two brothers. Neither of them have noticed it yet, but they’ve grown out of each other’s company. Sam’s got his sights set on anywhere but Lawrence, and Dean knows better than to try to stop him. Sam’s too much like their dad, too much of a _Winchester_ to stop where logic dictates. And Dean respects that, he really does. Because when Sam leaves, he’s not going to follow. He’s got too much invested already, and if his life has taught him anything, it’s that fire follows the Winchesters. And Sam’s out of the flames. Dean’s got no right to drag him back in.  
At night, Dean dreams of fire. He tosses and turns on the mattress, tormented by the screams, the anguished cries of people who could only watch as their lives burned before their eyes, the shouts of the people he couldn’t save, the raging of their loved ones as they saw that it was only him who emerged from the flames. He remembers the insults they scream, accepts the curses they brand him with.  
 _Murderer._  
 _Coward._  
 _Demon._  
There aren’t many things that the voices in the flames scream that Dean Winchester agrees with, but one follows him around like the smell of smoke.  
 _You have never deserved to be saved._  
He doesn’t know it, but for as long as he can remember, he’s been waiting for someone to tell him differently.


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

“The sun burned every day.  
It burned Time.  
The world rushed in a circle and turned on its axis  
and time was busy burning the years and the people anyway,  
without any help from him.”  
-Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Chapter 1

Dean’s listening to Guns N Roses when the last bell rings. He can hear the harsh almost-screech even over the chords of Paradise City, and he turns down the volume out of habit. Sam’s headaches tend to be worse on Fridays.  
Impatient, he fidgets with the rear view mirror, adjusting it so he can see the sidewalk up the street. A few college students are already walking down the pavement, and a few of them smile as they see the familiar black car idling at the curb. He knows some of them, and he waves and winks, but the motions are automatic, and he barely registers the faces.  
He’s looking for one giant in particular.  
Impatiently, he turns off the air conditioning. All it’s doing is sucking the moisture from the air. His eyes flick back to the rear view mirror, and he almost groans as he sees the familiar blonde walking next to the plaid-clad form of his not-so-little brother. He reaches over to open the passenger door for Sam. In the rear view mirror, he addresses Jo.  
“Please tell me you’re not carpooling again today.”  
She opens the rear door in a practiced motion, and swings herself into the backseat.  
“Ellen’s orders. And you know you’re happy to see me, Dean.”  
Dean rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, but grins.  
“You’re lucky I’m scared of your mom, or you’d walk home on Fridays.”  
He pulls forward to the intersection, flipping the blinker with unnecessary flair. Reaching over, he snaps off the music.  
Sam doesn’t even turn to face him, just looks out the window, his temple resting on his index finger, and Dean really doesn’t have the patience for this today.  
“How bad is it?”  
Sam laughs humorlessly.  
“On a scale of thumbtack in the skull to full on lobotomy? I’d say about bullet to the head.”  
Dean grimaces.  
“So, better than in the morning?”  
Sam shrugs.  
“Marginally. I ran out of Aspirin at around noon.”  
Dean’s mouth tightens. He knows that Sam carries the little white bottles around with him wherever he goes, but it’s not strange for him to worry about his brother’s liberality with the dosage, right?  
“Ran out? Didn’t you take three bottles?”  
“Two of them were empty, the third had about six.”  
“Oh. Well, we can stop by the pharmacy tomorrow morning for some more.”  
Sam makes a muted sound of assent.  
There’s an awkward silence then, and Dean’s never been good with serious conversation. He prefers jokes to awkward silences, but even crass humor doesn’t work when Sam’s like this. He opens his mouth lamely, the classically patronizing “how was school today” on the tip of his tongue.  
Lucky for him, Jo’s a lot better at this than he is.  
“We got the Microecon final paper assigned today.”  
Dean frowns.  
“What is it this year? Make a scale model of city hall? It’s always something stupid like that with Econ.”  
Sam doesn’t turn his head from the window. Dean can see the lines of fatigue on his face. He’d forgotten how much work school was. For Sam, migraines and exhaustion go together about as well as matches and tinder, and Dean probably is more guilty about this than he should be. Sam’s voice is almost a monotone.  
“We have to interview a small business owner, assigned from a preapproved list. And guess who I got.”  
Dean braces himself at the tired sarcasm in Sam’s tone.  
“Gabriel Novak. Trickster’s.”  
And it’s not at all funny how Jo’s mouth falls open in shock and pity. It’s really not. Because Dean’s face is probably not much more encouraging. With some effort, he picks his jaw off the floor, and straightens his back, trying to arrange his face into a semblance of nonchalance.  
He opens his mouth, ready to offer support, and hesitates.  
He knows he’s going to regret this.  
“I’ll come with you if you want. Moral support and all that.”  
Sam’s eyebrows shoot into his hairline, but he laughs, and there’s actual amusement in his smile this time.  
Jo leans forward, resting an elbow on each chair.  
“You two are so screwed.”  
Dean huffs.  
“Tell me about it.”  
And as the Impala rumbles down 5th Street and onto Bob Billings Parkway, its occupants can almost forget the fact that nothing started in April can ever end well.

\- - - - -

Sam doesn’t even notice when they drop Jo off.  
His head’s pounding, and the sunlight is making everything too bright; the greens are too green, the blue is almost blinding, and the road is an unnaturally bright, washed-out grey. He closes his eyes to block it out, but even the insides of his eyelids offer no solace. He can hear Dean talking, but his voice seems to echo and refract inside his skull, and he can’t quite make out the words.  
As they pull into the familiar driveway, Sam winces at the _thump ka-thunk_ the car makes as it bumps jarringly off the street and up the stretch of sidewalk, rolling up the driveway and rocking to a stop. Grabbing his backpack from between his knees, he fumbles for the door handle, and unfolds himself from the seat. The light is still too bright, but he squints, and the house comes into focus. He can see Dean’s concerned face, and halfheartedly fakes a smile, heading towards the house.  
He does _not_ want his brother hovering right now.  
But Dean has the keys, so he waits.  
Sam’s through the door the second it’s unlocked. He kicks off his shoes at the entrance, and makes his way up the stairs, ignoring Dean’s indistinct shouts that sound an awful lot like his name. He wants to be alone to wallow.  
Gabriel Novak. The scourge of his elementary school years. And now, the focus of the single most important paper of the year. If he can be sure of anything, it’s that Gabriel will find a way to screw it up.  
Sam sighs and rubs his eyes, making his way over to his desk. His room’s what used to be the office; they both actively avoid the nursery and the master suite, and the large wooden desk is the nicest piece of furniture in it.  
It’s old and carved, with rows of drawers lining either side. Sam’s mostly stuffed them with old papers and crumpled, dog-eared copies of criminal statutes. The desk is a mess in and of itself, with discarded sticky notes and scraps of paper overflowing the trashcan. Because for Sam, this is the one place he can allow himself to be messy, where he doesn’t have to keep up appearances. However, there’s one drawer he keeps meticulously clean, not out of pretense, but out of respect.  
Reaching his arm under the desk, Sam feels for the hidden catch on the underside of the writing surface. He finds it, and the wooden key tumbles from its niche. He pulls open the bottom drawer, and lifts the papers, grimacing at the scraps of paper that seem to scrape loudly when they hit the polished wood of the floor. He inserts the key into the bottom of the shelf, and the drawer’s false bottom pops free. Inside the hidden drawer, an old, burned album lays alone. Hesitantly, Sam picks it up.  
The leather cover is cracked and worn, and the pages are singed around the edges, but this is Sam’s most prized possession. He flips it open carefully, taking in the smiling faces of his mother and father. Turning the pages, he smiles sadly as he sees photos of his mom standing next to Bobby and Ellen. She’s holding a newborn Dean, and her face is absolutely radiant. On the next page, photos of Dean’s first steps are followed by his first Halloween. Next comes Dean’s first art project, and his discovery of paint. Sam turns through the following pages, and stops at a picture of three-and-a-half-year-old Dean holding his newborn self. The next few pages show the first year of his life, and slowly, his headache begins to fade.  
Soon, the only remainder of his migraine is a subtle pounding beneath his left temple, as constant as the sound of drums.  
When Sam finishes looking through the album, he carefully puts the book back in its drawer, being careful to lock it. The key is secured on the underside of the desk.  
Dean doesn’t know about the album; Sam feels it’s his secret to keep. He knows it’s selfish, but it’s the only bunch of memories he has that don’t hurt, and he feels entitled to that.  
From his bag, he pulls out his laptop, plugging it into the power. He opens up a blank document, titling it “Microecon Final Paper Interview Questions.” He stares at the title for a second, then deletes it, and after a second, the document. No amount of planning can help him now.  
Standing up from the desk, Sam raises a hand to his head as a wave of exhaustion swamps him. Noting absently that his forehead’s unnaturally warm, he makes his way over to the bed in the corner, and pours two tablets of Aspirin out of the bottle on his nightstand. He downs them dry, grimaces, and after a moment of thought, takes another. He swipes the curtain across the dusty panes of the window and flips off the light. Tomorrow he’ll deal with Gabriel, but right now he needs to sleep.


End file.
